The Australian Aged Care Quality Agency visited BaptistCare Griffith home after receiving a complaint from a resident's family member, according to minutes from a meeting called for residents' families.

The audit found it was failing to provide appropriate standards of care to residents.

The unannounced audit came just months after the nursing home met all 44 accreditation outcomes in a scheduled audit from the agency.

But in the unplanned audit, carried out between July 12 and July 24, the nursing home failed to meet 21 of the 44 outcomes.

The Department of Health identified seven areas of particular concern from the audit: human resources management, clinical care, skin care, continence management, behaviour management, living environment and infection control.

State director of the agency Tracey Clerke told residents' families at a meeting that the agency will continue to visit BaptistCare Griffith over the next couple of months to monitor its progress in fixing issues.

BaptistCare General Manager Paull English said the issues were "Griffith-centric" and had largely resulted from a change of structure, management and leadership roles in recent months.

In the meantime, the Department of Health sanctions mean BaptistCare Griffith is not able to admit new residents for a period of six months, must appoint an external administrator and nurse advisor and comply with stipulated training for all staff.

A BaptistCare spokeswoman said it was taking immediate steps to respond to a number of concerns flagged by the agency.

BaptistCare has appointed an independent administrator and nurse adviser from Aged Care Management Australia who are on site with two of their clinical consultants.

"Additional staff are also in place to support the local management team at Griffith and a number of corrective initiatives are already underway," she said.

"BaptistCare’s top priority is delivering the best possible care to its residents and the audit suggests we have failed to deliver on this occasion.

"We are deeply concerned by the circumstances that led to this result and are doing everything in our power to address the concerns raised as quickly as possible."

The full contents of the report are yet to be made public.